"The purpose of announcing early like this is to freeze the market at the OEM and ISV level. In this respect it is JUST like the original Windows announcement...

--Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft

Summary: In a shameless effort to discourage migrations to the zero-cost BSD and GNU/Linux, Microsoft continues to flood the media with false claims about the cost of Windows and the price of Vista 10 (not even released yet) in particular

READERS have let us know that Microsoft propagandist Ed Bott is spreading the 'free' Vista 10 myth (it's out there again and spreading quickly in corporate media; it's a myth that is not dead, despite a lot of debunking [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]). It reaches a large audience in the CBS-owned ZDNet, despite being a lie and a nasty form of PR. No matter how it turns out (Microsoft Peter already admits that Microsoft just lies about 'free' Vista 10 this time too), a lot of the public may be left with the false impression about the cost of Vista 10. This propaganda or semi-truths (i.e. lies) would target 'useful idiots' or people who hardly follow the news. Many still think that Vista 10 will be made available free of charge. There is a war on the minds.

"People choose GNU/Linux not just for cost savings; some people are capable of thinking long term and factor in external transactional aspects."Freedom, as ever before, is not free, so even if Vista 10 is somehow obtained (legally or illegally) at no cost it is not worth it; the price is people's control over their own lives.

For those who truly pursue Free software on computers (as well underlying hardware, which assures freedom in other ways) there is now "Purism". $1,649 will buy you a secure laptop with only Free software. As ZDNet (surprisingly enough) put it the other day:

The company hopes to expand the notebook lineup running its open-source PureOS with a smaller, $1,649 portable that will ship in September if it receives sufficient backing.

$1,649 may sound like a lot of money, but for a machine that can serve a person for many years (almost a decade) and ensure autonomy, privacy etc. in an age of increasingly-oppressive technology it might actually be worth it. People choose GNU/Linux not just for cost savings; some people are capable of thinking long term and factor in external transactional aspects. Windows lock-in is far too expensive even at $0 or negative pricing. Price can change over time and the abuses that come with proprietary software (e.g. espionage) are unforeseeable. ⬆

"Some weeks it looks like Redmond feels entitled to capture not just part of what we save, but all of it. That just isn't going to fly with corporate America forever. When your margins are more sensitive to Bill Gates' pricing whims than they are the price of oil, that's an untenable position for a large company to be in."

--John Chapman Sr., BP Amoco Technology Executive

“They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.”

--Bill Gates